A book, however, which has been canonized because of its general contents, and the spirit behind its form, will inevitably le used by many for its details literally taken. So used. Rev. has often had a harmful influence, setting thought upon useless tasks, and stimulating self-centred and morbid hopes and fears. If one puts over against this the wonderful ministry of comfort and strength in limes of trial which the book liaa rendered, he may lind justilicntion both for the doubts and for the tinal decision of the Church regarding its canonicity.
3. History of Interpretation. — The history of the interpretation of Rev. is an interesting chapter in
'Christianity has been in certain sects and at certain times apocal.\'ptical in temper, but not on the whole. Many npo- cal.vpcea were treasured a.i sacrnl by sects ami at times, wjijch were left aside by the Church as a whole and in the end.
242 REYELATTOX, BOOK OF
REVELATION, BOOK OF
Churcli history ; * but it is an inseparable part of a much larger chapter which it would be quite im- possible to write here. Harnack (Hist, of Dogma, 1. 12911'., 16711.) describes tlie two contrasted, though not mutually exclusive, conceptions of Christianity, the sschatological and the spiritual, the relatious of which make on« of the chief themes in the history of Christian thought. The earlier eschatological view gave way, especially under the inlluence of Greek thought, to the spiritual conception of salvation. Chiliasm, of which Rev. was the one clear and authoritative source, ' is found wherever the gospel is not yet Hellenized.' It is evident that where Hellenistic views prevailed Rev. must be either rejected or spiritually interpreted.
Among chiliasts, besides Cerinthiis, the heretic, are Papias, Justin, Irenffius. Hippolynjs, Tertullian — the early defenders of the authority' of Revelation. Origen, on the other hand, could receive the book and yet oppose a chiliastic conception of Christianity. The Eastern Church in general, as we have seen, followed the easier method of rejecting or neglecting the booic. In the West, Victorinus (c. 303) commented on the boolc in a chiliastic [i.e. literal) sense ; but a greater influence was exerted by the Commentarj' of T3'conius (before 3S0), whose interpreta- tion is spiritualistic. Through hiui 'the Latin Church finally broke ftnth all chiliastic inclinations and all realistic eschat- ology ' (Bousset, C3)- The ' thousand years' denote the present period of the Church between the First and the Second Coming of Christ. He was followed by Augustine (d« civitate Dei, xi. 7-17) and Jerome.
The possession of world-nilership by the Church took away the ground for chiliastic hopes, and re- moved both the circumstances and the temper out of which Rev. came. There was, however, a revival of the prophetic spirit in the Middle Ages, in re- action against ecclesiasticism and the secvuar spirit.
From the protesting order of the Franciscans, who attempted to recover the character and spirit of apostolic Christianity, came a chiliastic interpretation of Rev. about a.d. 1200, by Joachim of Floris. In Commentaries on Jeremiah and Isaiah under his name the end of the world was fixed at 1240 (Rev 113 1'2'i) and then at 1'290. The woman (Rev 17) was already inter- preted of the Romish Church by these pre-Reformation reformers, and this, together with a like application of the beasts of ch. 13 to Rome and the Pope, inevitably became a standing feature of Protestant commentators from Luther onwards; with ex- ceptions, such as Qrotius (l(i44) and Hammond (1653-1659).
Over against this enticing but flagrant misuse of the book, Catholic scholars in part sought for other historical applications of these figures (Turks, Mohammed, etc.) ; but in part made a beginning of a more correct method of interpretation by seeking in events of the author's own time, in the Jews and the Roman empire, for the clue to his predictions.
So especially Alcazar (lfll4), a Spanish Jesuit of Antwerp, who maintained that Rev 1-11 was aimed against Judaism, chs. 12 fl. against Rome. This correct effort to interpret Rev. in the light of the events of its own time was carried forward bv Grotius, llannnond, Clericus (1698), Wetstein (176'2) and others, at first wilh too nmch reference to Judaism and the fall of Jerusalem, but finally with a growing reco;jnition of Rome as the object of the book's denunciations (Semler (1769, etc.), Corrodi (1780), Eichhorn (1791)). The reference to Nero, in the wounded head (ch. 13), which had been found already by Victorinus (303), and again in a Jesuit commentary (Juan Mariana), was introduced into Protestant exegesis by Corrodi. This so-called contem- ftorarj/.historical (by some called 'prteteriat ') method of inter- pretation {i.e. by reference to historical events of the writer's own time) was most fully carried to completion in the great works of Liicke (Versuch einer vollstanditjen Einleitung in die Offenbarumi, 1832, 2nd cd. 18.'>2), Bleek {Vorlesurwen iiber die Apok. 186'2if, and Ewald (Comm. in Latin, 1828, Die Johann. Sehriften, 1862). So also Volkmar (1862), Diisterdieck (Meyer, 1859-87). t
In general these writers date the book before 70 (Rev 11M8); regard it as written chiefly against Rome ; and And in it a pre-
• See Liicke, Einl. in die Offenbarunrfl, 1863 ; Holtzmann, Band-Commentar, iv. p. 280 ff. : Bousset, KommenUir, pp. 51-141.
t To Liicke was especially due the recognition of the fact that Rev. is not an isolated book, but is one of a class, that It belongs in kind to the Jewish apocalypses, and is to be inter- prcted as they are. The fact that Daniel contains allusions to the Greek empire and to Antiochus Epiphanes was a strong reason for accepting the apparent references in Bev. to Borne and Nero.